Un parque para cada pueblo : Julio Enrique Monagas and the Politics of Sport and Recreation in Puerto Rico during the 1940s

Abstract

Un parqUe para cada pUeblo...

Colonial Olympism: Puerto Rico and Jamaica’s Olympic Movement in Pan‐American Sport, 1930 to the 1950s

“…63 Julio Enrique Monagas, Puerto Rico's Olympic and sport leading figure during the 1940s and 1950s, also looked towards the USA not only for inspiration, but also to help in keeping through sport the colonial status quo. 64 And Brundage's support of Puerto Rico's Olympic aspirations was no different than Jamaica's. Throughout the 1930s to the 1950s, he made sure that Puerto Ricans would be present at different regional sport competitions.…”

“Operation Sport”: Puerto Rico’s Recreational and Political Consolidation in an Age of Modernization and Decolonization, 1950s

“…It was with the arrival of Julio Enrique Monagas as Commissioner of Sport and Recreation in 1942, and with the support of the PPD that the state adopted a populist and social justice approach to sport and began a comprehensive modernization of sport, known as Un parque para cada pueblo. 49 This initiative was an unprecedented athletic infrastructure project of Monagas' creation that aimed at providing each of the island's seventy-eight towns with an athletic field, yet with little recreational programming. 50 This changed during the 1950s when the Parks Administration began a more comprehensive recreational program with "Operation Sport.…”